Stop the Email Pollution
Only you can stop inbox dumpster fires
Yesterday I received at least five emails in one thread with various people replying “thanks” or “received.” Why? For the love of all that is holy…why?
I have a proposal to clean up each other’s inboxes. Like wearing a mask or taking out our recycling, our actions in this pledge can help others.
Do Your Part — Say No to Thanks
Let’s all do it together. Let’s pledge to stop replying “thanks” or “received.” Imagine such a world: dozens of emails every week not sent. But, more importantly, dozens of emails are not in my or your inbox every week.
If we all collectively decide this is how society should work, then it will work. Nobody will be offended by a lack of a “thanks” or “received” email. And while we are on the subject, who are these people? Who is keeping track of whether the other person responded “thanks”?
The Read Receipt
The email gods, in their genius, seemingly realized this could be an issue. So they invented something called a read receipt. I enjoy those just about as much as anything else, but if you are someone who needs to know that an email was received, why not just request a read receipt? Outlook can automatically send them and reply to them, so no human is annoyed on either end.
The Exceptions to the Rule — Attachments
sigh. What kind of post by a lawyer would this be without a disclaimer or exception? In this case, the exception is attachments. I will be the first to recognize that attachments sent outside your organization remain problematic. We have changed every possible setting and done everything on our end to ensure that our emails are legit, and attachments sometimes still catch spam filters.
So this is my proposed exception to the pledge: when sending an email with an attachment, it is acceptable to request confirmation of receipt of the attachment. This is doubly true when something is time sensitive. For example, just last week, I had a discovery deadline and, of course, sent the discovery on the day of the deadline. To avoid any future jam-ups, I requested that the other attorney confirm receipt of the email.
We Can Do It — We Can Make Email Better for Everyone
There are thousands of articles and YouTube videos about better email management. Even I wrote one. But we can collectively make each other’s email inboxes better. We can stop email pollution.
Let’s say no to thanks and make the world a little bit better.
